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Quote by Lawrence Nault

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Lawrence Nault

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“A woman, Erika S., who lived at Melk in Austria near the site of one of the subcamps of Mauthhausen, gives a frank account of the way she dealt with this physical proximity. She did sometimes see things, unavoidably. She tells of having felt pity in particular for the plight of one Jew she observed, though a pity, it has to be said, that was mixed with something darker, namely amusement at the incongruous gait---'like a circus horse'---forced upon this man by the pain in his bare feet and the whipping of the guards. Her general attitude, however, Erika S. characterizes as follows: 'I am happy when I hear nothing and see nothing of it. As far as I am concerned, they aren't interned. That's it. Over. It does not interest me at all”

IndifferenceHolocaustBanality
Book:The Contract of Mutual Indifference: Political Philosophy After the Holocaust
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“A crucial question for them, indeed, one challenging their humanity, is the question addressed to the spectator at the scene of evil. How continue life as normal after having seen that? How, if you are not a stone or a pile of dead wood or a cadaver? How, in other terms, without disappearing into the insentient natural cosmos? The victim and survivor of the Holocaust thus puts his question, embodied in literary form, so to say, of a prayer. To be indifferent is to stand condemned.”

HumanismIndifferenceHolocaust
Book:The Contract of Mutual Indifference: Political Philosophy After the Holocaust
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“When, grown older, we look back on the selfishness of the people who’ve been mixed up with our lives, we see it undeniably for what it was, as hard as steel or platinum and a lot more durable than time itself. As long as we’re young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the score, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you’ve come to. There’s no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales; if you’ve lived this long, it’s because you’ve squashed any poetry you had in you. Life is keeping body and soul together.”

LifeSoulAgeCrueltySelfishnessIndifferenceCunningMalice
Book:Journey to the End of the Night
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